My Windows 98 will not run applications, telling me that a driver is
missing by the name of
isavsymy.exe
This condition resulted when I tried installing an OEM version of
Norton 2003 anti virus. Where can I download the missing driver, or
will I have to format my drive and start over? |
Request for Question Clarification by
pwizard-ga
on
25 Nov 2002 12:41 PST
Greetings gerry923,
I couldn't find any reference to the specific file you mention in your
question, searching Google, Google Groups, the Symantec SARC or
Microsoft Technet archive. When exactly are you receiving this error
message and what is the entire context of the message?
You say that you can no longer run applications due to a "driver"
being missing. Drivers usually do not cause applications not to run.
You also say it happened after installing Norton AV 2003 OEM which I
am assuming it did a full system scan after the installation.
My guess as to what has happened is that your computer was infected
with a virus that inserts itself into the system registry and attaches
the infected file onto the shell statement for opening applications.
What this does is basically run the virus each time you start an
application. Now, when you run a virus scanner and simply choose to
DELETE the infected file, it does not correct the registry entries
pointing to this file, so now your applications will no longer run and
you will receive a file not found error similar to what you are
describing in your question (each time you try to run an application).
There's a couple of ways to correct this problem, but first I want to
verify that this is indeed the issue before proceeding. Could you
verify that Norton DID find and/or clean a virus after the
installation? If so, do you recall the name of the virus?
If this is not the problem, if you could get me some more information
on the exact error message you are receiving and when exactly you
receive it (along with any other symptoms) I'll be happy to help you
try and resolve it.
Thanks,
PWizard
|
Request for Question Clarification by
theta-ga
on
26 Nov 2002 07:27 PST
Could you specify when you get this error message ?
Do you get it while you are booting up Windows, or when you try to run
an application by clicking on a shortcut ?
Thanks,
Theta
|
Clarification of Question by
gerry923-ga
on
28 Nov 2002 18:59 PST
PWizard,
I followed your instructions of 27 Nov.re editing he Windows
registry. I found "isavsvmy.exe "%1"%*", erased the file name, and
made sure the "%1"%" remained. I then re-booted and clicked on an
application icon, and got the following:
Windows cannot find .
This program is needed for opening files of type
'Application'
Location of
Same as before, except that program name is now missing. After
re-booting that name did not reappear in the specified location.
I still cannot run any applications under Windows! What next?
Your help is greatly appreciated!
Gerry923
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pwizard-ga
on
28 Nov 2002 20:44 PST
It sounds to me like you are in exactly the right spot, but you might
have an extra quotation or something in the registry key. The value
should be exactly as follows:
"%1" %*
with the spaces and quotes, etc, but nothing more. Try making sure
it's set to that and then seeing if it fixes the problem. I'm
completely confident that it's just now a matter of getting the
punctuation correct before your problem is fixed.
Good Luck and let me know how it works as I would like to compile this
as an official answer if it resolves your issue. Thanks for holding
off on formatting your C: drive as I think this can be resolved
without taking such a drastic measure.
-PWizard
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pwizard-ga
on
28 Nov 2002 20:53 PST
Alternatively, if you cannot seem to get the punctuation correct on
that registry key, you can try running this fix from Symantec:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.navidad.fix.html
It's the fix routine for a virus called "Navidad", which is probably
not the one you had, but it affects the same registry key and this fix
file restores the key to it's default state, which should correct your
problem as well. I would download and run this only if manually
editing the key is not working for you.
-PWizard
|
Clarification of Question by
gerry923-ga
on
29 Nov 2002 17:54 PST
Question ID 114376
PWizard-ga
I believe that we are close to a solution to my problem. Fixing
the register parameter ""%1" %*" allows the applications to run, but
as eachone is called to run it puts up its own dialog box headed by
its PATH. Then in the body of the box is this statement:
Access to the specified device, path, or file is denied.
There is a rather large colored circle with an X in it before
these statements, The box disappears after several clicks on the X in
the upper right corner or by right clicking the heading bar and its
small dialog box.
It seems to me that each application program must check a
parameter located somewhere that tells it whether or not it is allowed
to use the system resources. Can we locate that parameter and change
it? I wonder how many more "hurdles" will appear before we are done.
Incidentally, I ran Fixnavid.com, and it reported "Your computer is
not infected with W32 Navidad" Its setting of ""%1" %*" agrees with
my manual setting as well as with two other Win98 computers in my
possession.
I'll stick with this until we find the solution. I hope that you
will do the same, and I appreciate your help very much.
Gerry923-ga
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pwizard-ga
on
29 Nov 2002 19:14 PST
I'd like to direct you here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;172223&
This article refers to this same problem in a Windows 2000
environment, but I think it probably also holds true for your 98
machine. Note that on Win98, it uses the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to store the exefile info.
I would look in your registry at everything under the hive:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CLASSES\exefile
...and compare to another Win98 machine to see if there are any
differences at all and correct them if so. I feel like whatever
changed your open command, may have also either changed or deleted
another key as well in that same hive.
It's obvious that some sort of malicious program infected your
computer and created the problem you're having. My guess is that
Norton detected it and deleted the infected file, but left behind all
of the remnants in the registry. Without knowing what virus or
malicious program made these changes, it's going to be very difficult
trying to trace down every instance it affected in the registry (if
the above doesn't clear it up). I think the reason that I'm not
finding anything on "isavsvmy" in my searches is that the virus is
creating a random filename that it's using as it's infected source,
thus making it more difficult to combat.
Do you still have Norton AV installed? If so, the virus may be in the
Quarantine folder or there is probably some sort of log file that it
created letting you know which virus was on the system. Even if you
uninstalled Norton, it may have left behind some sort of log file...
you might try searching your HD for it.
I'll continue to help you the best I can.
-PWizard
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pwizard-ga
on
04 Dec 2002 14:51 PST
I was curious to if we had ever solved your problems with the steps
above? Haven't received any responses from you in several days. I
still would like to turn this into an offical answer and close out the
question if your problem has been solved. Please let me know. Thanks!
-PWizard
|
